The invention is directed generally to dry pellet dispensing devices and, more particularly, to a device for dispensing dry chemical pellets for the treatment of water pumped from a well.
There are many homes and farms which rely on private wells as the sole source of water for both people and animals. Not infrequently, the wells are contaminated with undesirable bacteria and other microorganisms. Some, such as red rust or iron bacteria, are merely a nuisance, causing the water to be unsuitable for washing clothes and resulting in excessive mineral deposits in pipes through which the water flows. Other organisms transmit water-borne diseases that infect both people and livestock ingesting the water. Careful treatment of the water with the appropriate chemicals can frequently alleviate the most typically found contaminations.
Devices for treating wells with chemicals are known. Examples include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,785,525 and 4,235,849. Both patented devices rely on rotating plates to meter the dispensing of solid pellets from a supply resevoir into the well. The known devices suffer from several problems. One problem is the difficulty of metering precisely and adjustably the amount of chemical dispensed into the well. The chemical pellets are subject to breakage, and pieces of the pellets can jam the metering or delivery parts of the known devices. Satisfactory performance of the devices also depends on the reliability of the metering parts to select a single pellet each dispensing cycle. As a result, either over- or under-treatment of the water can occur.